Measuring the contribution of higher education to innovation capacity in the EU

The general goals of the study include the provision of evidence on the key factors determining the contribution of higher education institutions (HEIs) to innovation capabilities and expand the understanding of this contribution beyond traditional measures of the role of HEI on innovation capabilities. In this context, the general objective of the study could be verbalised as “to develop a more comprehensive model of the contribution of higher education to innovation capacity”. This objective has been operationalised into the following five specific objectives which define in detail the purpose of the study:  Specific Objective 1: Completion of a comprehensive literature review of existing means and methodologies used for capturing, interpreting and also applying data and evidence related to the contribution of higher education systems to innovation capacity;  Specific Objective 2: Critical assessment of the existing literature, including an identification of gaps and an assessment of the merits of different approaches used;  Specific Objective 3: Development of a new approach, that provides an alternative set of indicators to measure the contribution of HEIs to innovation capacity;  Specific Objective 4: Implementation of the prototype set of alternative metrics;  Specific Objective 5: Discussion of the feasibility of developing new proxies or metrics for capturing the contribution of higher education systems to innovation capacity at the EU level. In general, the objective of the project and its research tools is therefore to propose a set of indicators for future measurements of the innovation impacts of HE that is validated through the opinions of the different stakeholders in the field (through interviews, case studies and a survey).